Most exhibition disappointments are logistics failures rather than marketing failures. The stand looked fine, the product was good, and the graphics arrived two days late, or did not fit the space, or carried a phone number that nobody could read from the aisle. This article is a practical planning framework for a small company exhibiting at a trade fair — what to decide, in what order, and by when.
Twelve weeks out: decide what the stand is for
Before anything is designed, write down the single measurable objective. “Collect 80 qualified leads.” “Book 15 demo appointments.” “Launch the new product to existing customers.” A stand designed to collect leads looks different from one designed to impress existing clients, and a stand designed for neither tends to be a table with a logo on it.
From the objective, derive the one sentence that goes at the top of the stand. Not a slogan — a plain statement of what you do, readable at four metres. Most visitors walking an aisle decide whether to stop based on that sentence and nothing else.
Also at this stage: confirm stand size and position from the organiser, and get the technical manual. It contains the rules that constrain everything downstream — maximum build height, whether anything can be fixed to the walls or ceiling, fire-retardancy requirements for materials, electrical limits, and build-up and breakdown times. Reading it in week twelve rather than week two is the single highest-value hour in the whole process.
Ten weeks out: the layout
Sketch the footprint to scale, including the shell scheme walls if there are any, and mark where the aisle is.
Three layout principles hold almost universally:
Keep the front open. A table across the front of a stand is a barrier that measurably reduces the number of people who enter. Push furniture to the sides or back.
Put the message high. Anything below about 120 cm is invisible in a crowded hall. Identity and headline go at 180-250 cm; detail goes at eye level; storage goes underneath.
Leave somewhere to stand. Staff standing in the aisle blocking their own stand is the most common and most self-defeating error at any fair.
Decide now what the physical elements are: backdrop wall, roll-up stands, counter, screen, product display, seating. Every one of them has a lead time.
Eight weeks out: order the graphics
This is the deadline that slips most often, and it should not, because printing is the least flexible part of the schedule.
Typical portable stand elements and their roles:
- Tension fabric backdrop or pop-up wall — the main visual surface, usually 2.3-3 m wide. Fabric rather than PVC, because exhibition lighting causes glare on gloss material and ruins photographs.
- Roll-up banners — flexible, cheap, reusable across events, and useful for flanking a table or filling a corner. Order Roll-up stendai in the standard 85 × 200 cm size unless the space demands otherwise; the standard size travels in a car and fits every venue.
- Printed counter or desk wrap — turns a plain organiser-supplied table into part of the stand for very little money.
- Hanging banner — if the venue allows rigging, this is the only element visible from across the hall, and it is what draws people who were not walking your aisle.
- Floor graphics — with a certified anti-slip laminate, not ordinary vinyl.
Send print files with the venue’s technical restrictions attached, so the supplier can flag anything non-compliant. Ask for a soft proof and check it against the physical dimensions of the stand, not just the artwork.
Six weeks out: the collateral and the follow-up plan
Print leaflets, business cards and any product sheets now, and order less than instinct suggests. Most exhibition leaflets end in a bin inside the venue. A single well-made one-page sheet outperforms a glossy brochure, costs a fraction, and is more likely to be kept.
Design the lead capture mechanism at the same time. Whether it is a badge scanner from the organiser, a tablet form, or a paper sheet, decide now and test it. Include a field for what was actually discussed — a list of names with no context is worth very little two weeks later.
Write the follow-up email before the event. Post-show fatigue is real, and a template already written gets sent on day two rather than day fourteen, which is roughly when the value of a lead halves.
Four weeks out: logistics
- Book travel and accommodation — hotel prices near a fair rise sharply as it approaches.
- Confirm exhibitor passes, parking, and vehicle access times for build-up.
- Order electrics, furniture and internet from the organiser. These are almost always cheaper in advance and expensive on site.
- Arrange shipping for anything that will not fit in the car, and confirm what the venue does with deliveries that arrive early.
- Confirm build-up and breakdown times in writing, including whether breakdown can start before the show closes — usually it cannot, and leaving early is often a contractual breach.
Two weeks out: brief the people
The stand does not sell; the people do. Agree in advance:
The opening question. “Can I help you?” invites “no thanks”. Something specific to what a visitor is looking at works far better.
The qualifying questions — two or three that establish whether this person is worth twenty minutes.
The rota. Nobody should stand for eight hours; attention collapses and it shows. Two-hour shifts with real breaks produce better conversations than heroic all-day stints.
The rules: no sitting, no phones, no eating on the stand, and never leave it unattended.
One week out: the box
Pack a stand kit, and treat this list as non-negotiable: cable ties, gaffer tape, scissors, a multi-tool, extension leads and adaptors, spare phone chargers, cleaning wipes, a small first aid kit, pens, a notebook, blank name badges, spare business cards, a steamer or a spray bottle for fabric creases, and a printout of every confirmation and contact number.
Test-build the stand at the office. Every element, fully assembled, once. This takes an hour and it finds the missing pole, the wrong-sized graphic and the dead battery while there is still time to fix them.
On the day
Arrive at the start of build-up, not the end — venues get chaotic and lifts get busy. Build, then walk to the far end of the aisle and look back at your stand as a visitor would. Anything unreadable from there is a problem you can still fix.
Clean everything before the doors open: fingerprints on a fabric backdrop and dust on a counter are visible in photographs and to visitors.
During the show, log leads immediately with context. At the end of each day, photograph the stand — you will want the images for marketing, and for planning next time.
After: the part that determines whether it was worth it
Send follow-ups within 48 hours, personalised with the detail you logged. Measure against the objective written in week twelve: leads collected, meetings booked, cost per lead. Then write a short debrief while it is fresh — what worked, what was missing from the box, which graphics did their job and which did not.
Keep the reusable elements properly. Roll-up graphics stored upright and retracted by hand, fabric folded loosely in its bag, hardware in its case. A stand kit that is looked after serves for years, and reprinting only the dated elements each season is a fraction of the cost of starting again. Print suppliers such as Printobella that hold your artwork on file can reprint a single replacement panel at matching size and colour, which is the practical argument for staying with one supplier across events.
A condensed timeline
- 12 weeks: objective, headline sentence, stand size, technical manual.
- 10 weeks: scale layout, element list.
- 8 weeks: order all printed graphics; proof against real dimensions.
- 6 weeks: collateral, lead capture, follow-up template.
- 4 weeks: travel, passes, electrics, furniture, shipping.
- 2 weeks: staff briefing, rota, questions.
- 1 week: pack the kit, test-build everything.
- After: follow up within 48 hours, measure, debrief, store the kit properly.
